Losing It (31 page)

“Cake! Cake!” Matthew said.

“Shhh, you,” Julia said to him. “Look, it’s your favourite,” she said to her mother. But her mother wouldn’t look. Julia had to wave the cake under her nose, then take a spoonful of the maple syrup and dribble some on her lips before her mother got distracted from the task of opening and shutting drawers.

“Mmmmmm,” her mother said finally, and a distorted sort of pleasurable expression came over her face, as if she couldn’t quite remember how to do it. “Oh, what was that?”

“Cake! Cake!” Matthew said. “Want some too!”

“It’s dessert, Mom. You deserve dessert. Won’t you sit down and have some?”

“Oh golly.” She seemed torn, reluctant to leave the drawers and yet drawn unbearably to the cake and syrup.

“Pleeeese! Pleeeeese!” Matthew whined.

“Just try a bit for now,” Julia said. “Then you can get back to your hunting later. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? You’re hunting for something?”

“That’s a good idea,” her mother said, and she left a drawer pulled out, as if to remind her of where she was in her labours. Then she followed Julia into the dining room and sat at the table, delicately pulled a napkin onto her lap.

“Would you like some tea?” Julia asked.

“Pleeeese, mummy!” Matthew said.

“Shhh, you, I’m going to give you nubbies in a bit,” Julia said.

“Ohhh, ohhh, pleeeeese!” he moaned.

“I just want quiet for ten minutes,” Julia said, plugging in the kettle.
Upstairs, after cake, after settling her mother onto the pull-out for a nap that Julia knew wasn’t going to last more than a few minutes, after nubbies and listening to her mother get up and start pulling out and slamming drawers again, Julia closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift. She had a dream of visiting the gentle place. She was running, a little scared, through cold, dark woods, but then there was the familiar clearing. The grass was so green she almost melted into it, the air so warm and soft, and her body was so light. There was the huge, kind willow with the cool shade down by the brook. Matthew was with her, he was tall and strong, so beautiful. He said he wanted some nubbies but Julia told him, “You’re much too old.” He wanted some anyway, he could be so charming, and Julia felt sad, he’d grown up so quickly. “That’s how it is,” he said, walking ahead of her. He had tanned, strong legs, wasn’t wearing anything. She meant to tell him that he couldn’t go to university like that, but it was all right for the nice place.

“You’ll get hair soon,” she said to him. “You’ll get hairy like your father,” but he said no, he’d wash it off, put it down the drain.

It was a funny dream. She wasn’t deeply asleep. She could feel Matthew tugging at her breast, playing with the nipple, sucking hard for a time and then letting it go, as if he were playing a fish on a line. She could feel him and yet still dream about him diving into the brook with complete abandon – it looked so shallow but he knew what he was doing. Where he was diving it was twelve, eighteen, a hundred feet deep, and so cool and clear. She could almost taste the water of that dive, and yet also she had an ear out for her mother working those drawers. She never took anything out, she just opened and closed. Sometimes with a whack, but it didn’t startle her. Julia was deeply relaxed. Rare enough for her. It felt wonderful. She
was … multi-tasking. That was the right word. It was a higher form of consciousness achieved only by extraordinary mothers in extreme states of fatigue.

It was so warm in the nice place, and he smiled. She told him, “Don’t smile like that. All the girls will fall in love with you.” But it didn’t matter, he smiled even more warmly. His smile took some of the green away from the grass, it was too beautiful. She warned him again. She said, “Matthew, please,” but he didn’t stop. He drank up all the green from the grass, and it turned brown and crisp. And then the grasshoppers came out, they buzzed loud as hornets, they loved the dry, brown grass. “Matthew,” she said, but her voice was quite weak, her throat dry now, she could barely hear herself above the din. She called out to him but it was hard to breathe, it was getting so hot, and she was coughing. She rolled over and opened her eyes and baby Matthew was crying beside her. My God, she thought, what time is it? She’d only been out a couple of minutes, ten at the most, but when she looked around everything was black, it looked like the middle of the night. She fumbled for her watch. She’d put it on the table by the bed. The air felt so oddly hot, and smelled horrible … and then Julia was completely awake, far too awake for her own taste, the smoke alarm was sounding almost in her ear. She grabbed Matthew and ran through the haze to the bedroom door. “Mom!” she cried out. “Mother!” And she put her hand on the knob, which was warm, not hot. She had a sudden thought that she should keep the bedroom door closed. She recalled some safety film from the dim recesses of her memory, how you weren’t supposed to open doors in a fire, the sudden influx of oxygen might cause a flame to roar up and engulf whoever was standing there. She found her way back to the phone on the bedside table, tried to dial 911, but there was no tone. She
didn’t panic, and yet without really knowing how she was suddenly lunging down the stairs, grasping Matthew to her chest so powerfully she thought she might crush him, but felt unable to loosen her grip even slightly. The stairs were not on fire. The banister was not crackling with heat. She brushed her arm against it by mistake but didn’t feel any burn. She thought, It might be the adrenaline; I might be unable to feel the heat. And she made it to the bottom of the stairs thinking, My God, I am putting my child in danger.

“Mother! Mother!” she yelled, but she could see no one in the kitchen. The smoke was terrible. She fell to her knees, still grasping Matthew, and crawled down the hallway – where she knew the hallway to be – until she reached the front door. And there was her mother, bent over, with a lighter, flicking the flame again and again at the doorknob.

“What are you doing?”
Julia screamed, and stood, knocked the lighter out of her mother’s hand. Her mother looked up, startled, and slapped Julia across the face.

“That was our escape, young lady!” her mother sputtered, and immediately bent to look for the lighter on the floor. “No dessert for you!” she snapped.

Julia pulled the sleeve of her sweatshirt over her hand, grasped the door handle and opened it cautiously. “Come on!” she yelled, but her mother was intent on retrieving the lighter. “We’re free! We’re free!” Julia screamed, and pulled Matthew and her mother out the door to fresh air.

27

C
larity comes in a flat yellow tablet, which is rough on the tongue, porous, a bit crumbly. It tastes like vinegar and onions, not sweet at all, but bearable. It works best when you let it soak in the back of the mouth, like a throat lozenge, so that it seeps slowly. Too much clarity coming on too fast is overwhelming, like stumbling into direct sunlight after so much time down in the cave. You turn away from it, feel dizzy, crawl back to your little crouch in the darkness. Clarity is best in small doses, little drips spreading gradually so that the heart and eyes and mind have a chance to adjust to so much silver and translucence, so many reverberations.

The sound of the key in the lock. The trembling of the hand, his perspiration, the worried edges of his voice. They all get magnified, every breath and gesture, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up and his little nipples hardening under his shirt, they become your own. There is no single body with clarity, the lines begin to erase and fall away. You walk so softly, breathe as quietly and smoothly as you can. Waste no movement or thought.

“I was worried you wouldn’t come,” he says, his eyes awash with relief and expectation, and so you reach out to embrace in the middle of the office even while you seem to be staying separate. He keeps looking at the knapsack, at what you’ve brought, hurrying, but why ruin it? It must be done slowly, must be tasted and savoured, fully understood. That’s the hard part, getting to the bottom. Cutting through the murk and incoherence. Reaching clarity.

If you relax and let the fluids soak, softly, then the vinegar-and-onion taste recedes. Or maybe it’s that you adjust, become accustomed to the power of it, the rhythms, the milkiness that fills your body, the beauty of everything you sense around you. You know what to say to help others … because you
are
the others, you start to see that. And the others are you. You’re sharing your self in the most selfless way possible, helping them to
become
you, and, in a way, you become them. Just a little.

You say, “I think you should take off your clothes.” Softly, with a low purr in your voice. It’s the right thing to say, because you don’t want boundaries between you.

You say, “Don’t be afraid. The door is locked and the blinds are closed. No one will know.” And you stay where you are, by the bookcase, stand relaxed, not anticipating. Not looking, but not looking away either. He is very quiet and his fingers are trembling but you don’t go to him physically. You lend your essence. That’s the way of clarity. Send your essence across the room and his jacket comes off, his tie and shirt. He bends down to take off his shoes and socks, hesitates. The phone rings and you don’t say a word, just turn your head slightly, the least possible movement, but he knows to leave it. When it stops ringing he turns the phone off completely, without one word from you. It’s essence communicating with essence. Everything becomes smooth and co-ordinated.

“You are lovely,” you say, and you mean it, it’s exactly what he is. His skin so babyish and new. He’s standing in his underwear, doesn’t know where to put his hands – in front or behind, on his hips, where? They keep moving. He’s a little cold, you sense that, in this heightened state; he’s shivering but he won’t admit it, and he’s too afraid to ask what you’ve brought him. It’s so sweet. He can hardly talk above a whisper, but a whisper is perfect. You say, “I’ve brought you a few things,” and his underpants spring to attention; it’s marvellous, now he
really
doesn’t know where to put his hands.

Clarity is humorous. That’s the unexpected thing. You think it’s going to be serious, a heavy trip into deeper meaning, but there’s a stage when it all looks funny. You can’t give in, that’s crucial, it has to be a secret humour, a more profound, cosmic laughter. You can let the lightness into your eyes, but you must show it as love and affection, an embrace of this comic world, a celebration of the essential silliness of humanity.

“We need to do your back,” you say, again in a soft purr. Let the laughter resonate inside, but remain still. “I brought a shaver,” you say, and you open your pack.

Whatever is happening now is happening forever. Not just now but for all time. Your fingers are pulling open the zipper. Your hand is taking out the shaver. You say, “Where is a plug?” and he turns, this large, nearly naked man, and starts to look for an electrical outlet. This pause in the dance, or is it? No, it’s
part
of the dance as well, his awkwardness in not knowing where the outlet is. He walks to the corner of the room, peers under his desk, looks along the far wall. Like a bumblebee searching out flowers, flying this way and that, confused, circling. He’s a big, hairless bumblebee, except for his back, which he wasn’t able to shave by himself. There’s a lamp and a computer on his desk; they must be plugged into something. But
he doesn’t realize this right away. You watch, see everything so clearly miles before it happens.

“There. I’ve got it!” he says like a little boy, standing there in his underpants, so excited and trusting. It’s a different moment than before, and so you change directions.

“I’ve brought some proper panties for you,” you say, and because the boundaries are being erased, and you’re becoming him in a way, you feel such tenderness when his heart jigs. It’s such a little thing, but to him everything. What wouldn’t we give to those we love? And clarity is, above all, love. A taking-unto and soaking in the soup of our common consciousness. That’s why you have to be so careful. It erases all the lines, and so you could lose yourself, you feel so close sometimes, wonder if when he lifts his foot and pulls the fabric up his leg, and then the other side, is he going to walk away as you, and will you walk away as him? Will you put on the masculine suit and the black socks and frumpy trousers, the heavy body with such big, soft hands? Will you walk away thirty years older, in another life, with a woman and child waiting at home? Will you roam through the attic and the crawl spaces of his professorial mind? All those books, so much learning and wisdom. Would there be any room for who and what you’ve brought with you?

“There now. That’s better,” you say when he stands up to show you. You haven’t stinted. Black satin with French lace edging, extra large. “How does that feel?”

He doesn’t have to say anything, you can
see
how it feels. “Mmmmm,” you say, and you want to touch him right there but you don’t. He wants to tell you all about it, but you put your finger on his lips. “Later,” you whisper. “There are some things first.” So you turn him, have him put his hands on the desk, and then you flick on the shaver. The head is a little cold; you’re sorry, but it’s in a good cause. You use the large head first, which
shears the long hairs, then switch to the smaller head, which clips off the bristly ends, brings it right down to skin. “There,” you say, in a dance, in a poem. “Now I can see you.”